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Weekend trip: San Diego

June 30, 2015

It seems that every winter my family decides to escape New England and come to California. My dad was here in the beginning of March and then my mom came out at the end of March for a conference. She doesn’t trust San Francisco weather, so I met her in San Diego for some guaranteed warmth and sunshine.

I was excited to explore more of the city after our very brief trip a few years ago. We started by exploring Seaport Village and relaxing at the hotel pool before going out for dinner in the Gaslamp Quarter. My mother hadn’t been to San Diego in 23 years and she couldn’t believe how “happening” it was.

The next day we rented a car and drove up to La Jolla. We explored the coastline, shopped and ate a delicious lunch at George’s on the Cove (blackened fish tacos and a blackberry mojito). Then we headed north to Torrey Pines State Park. My mom wanted to walk all the way down to the beach, but I demurred, so we admired from up high. After returning to San Diego, we ate at The Fish Market because they’re one of a small number of restaurants that carries cockles.

Torrey Pines State Park

For our last day, we took the ferry over to Coronado, an island a few minutes away from San Diego. I had wanted to visit Coronado with Ben, but we didn’t have time. We rented bikes to ride to the beach, which we thought was about a mile away. Half an hour later we were still pedaling, but all the other tourists had disappeared and our only company on the bike path were hard-core cyclists with clip-in pedals and road bikes. In contrast, we were riding beach cruisers. We realized the beach was actually 5 miles away, but we eventually made it. On the way home, we stopped at the Hotel del Coronado, an all-wooden structure built in 1888 which is one of the last such structures still standing.

San Diego has a huge craft beer scene and my mother had never visited a brewery so we knew we wanted to visit one. Happily Coronado has its own brewing company and we snagged seats on their outdoor patio. We tried about 10 beers and both agreed that Orange Avenue Wit was our favorite.

After this trip, I can now say I've spent significant amounts of time in most of the major West Coast cities, including San Diego, Portland and Seattle. I think we’ll have to make a trip to LA soon.